


Headed Straight For The Castle

by orphan_account



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Angst, Childhood Trauma, Dom/sub, Dubious Morality, Glory Hole, M/M, Multi, Omega Verse, Oral Sex, Past Underage Sex, Pet Play, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Prostitution, Rentboys, Sexual Dysfunction, runaways - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-24
Updated: 2016-11-01
Packaged: 2018-08-10 18:12:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7855846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shiro is doing a decent job at pushing through life. Not a great job. Not even a good one, but...decent enough. He keeps it simple, tries to sleep most nights, leave his apartment semi-regularly, smile for the friends he has left, call his mother weekly. It's enough. </p><p>Until it's not and he finds himself taking two stray kittens home to keep for his own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Playing with Fire

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first arc of my Kittenverse, for my 600 or so followers, give or take 30 porn blogs. ;) 
> 
> Mind the warnings. This is...a heavy story. Very much 3 messed up people who might eventually decide to be messed up together. In the context of a more or less 24/7 pet play scenario. Eventually.

Shiro figured that, generally, the sort of person who found someone to get them off for money online lacked a certain kind of self awareness or were amazing at self-delusion. Shiro didn’t think he was that sort of person, not really. He stared up at the small building, a concrete square next to the train platform at a station that he was assured was rarely used, and felt sort of like an asshole, actually. Which was pretty par for the course these days so he was able to accept it for what it was and make himself walk towards the building in spite of that. 

It had rained earlier and the air was chilly and damp as it clung to the exposed skin of his face and ears; his arm ached in his prosthetic and the pain relievers he’d taken before heading out were doing nothing. His breath was a misty frozen cloud lingering around him and he pulled his coat a little tighter around his body. It was bigger than he remembered it being, hanging off his shoulders and billowing around his waist. He hadn't worn it in a while, did most of his work from home and when he went out he was never out in the cold long enough to justify it. 

It barely felt like it belonged to him, or maybe just a better version of him. A version who didn't email hookers for sex and then show up to actually go through with it.

And yet here he was.

He wanted to be able to push the blame off on someone else, specifically Doctor Haggar, his therapist. As much as he hated visiting her as part of the conditions of employment, and the terms of the contract he'd signed when accepting an ‘experimental’ prosthetic from the military, he couldn't really blame her. She'd asked, in that sickly sweet prying way of hers, why he wasn't dating yet.

His response that people weren’t exactly beating down the door to get at a one armed alpha with a broken dick had surprised both of them. Even when he was annoyed and tired and in pain he didn’t say things like that, didn’t let himself be outwardly bitter. But it had been one of his bad days. Week. Weeks. It had been a series of bad. 

A ‘can’t get out of bed, sore all over, tired of the silence of his apartment but equally as tired of the noise in his head and hating his reflection’ kind of thing. Those days came and went and came and stayed and...the point was he wasn’t normally that sort of angry person. He didn’t snap or snarl, certainly not over the phone at his therapist who was kind enough to do his session over the phone because he hadn’t been outside of his apartment in three days.

He’d felt contrite enough that he hadn’t hung up when the conversation turned to Matt, who had at one point been willing to stay with him or even when Doctor Haggar had told him that she strongly suggested he attempt to have a sexual encounter, preferably with an omega, to get a better idea of the scope of his ‘problem’. 

Some things just work better in the heat of the moment, had been her exact phrasing.

He had informed her he wasn’t going to do any such thing and she’d started going on about an ‘Intimacy therapist’ she could recommend him to. The call ended with a promise to attempt to come in for his next session and to ‘consider’ her suggestion. 

He hadn’t intended to. There were...factors. He wasn’t about to try and find an omega to take home for the night just to try out potentially faulty parts. Aside from how awkward such a thing would be, and it would be awkward and he knew it because he’d been there and done that with someone who actually cared about him and had tried to downplay things but a one night stand probably wouldn’t be so kind, he didn’t enjoy the idea of letting someone see him. 

He was a mess of scars and discolored skin that didn’t quite sit right on his bones anymore and  a stump of an arm that would never be anything but jarring and ugly to look at. There was nothing nice to look at about him and he didn’t want to deal with it. The surprised looks when they noticed the prosthetic, all pale white plastic and dark metal, then the pity and the polite, always so polite, way people talked to him after was bad enough. The shock when they saw what he looked like under his clothes (he still remembered Matt’s wide eyes and the way he’d looked away, hands clenched at his sides, when the bandages had finally come off and the way his own mother, who he’d never seen shed a tear in all his life, sobbed into his father’s chest) was something he could live without.  

He didn’t like looking at himself and didn’t expect anyone else would either. 

It had been eighteen months since someone who wasn’t a doctor had seen him naked. Longer since someone who wasn’t himself had gotten him off. Eleven months since Matt had left him, slowly packing up his things while Shiro silently watched, and left their apartment without a backwards glance. Shiro hadn’t done much to stop him, didn’t have that sort of protest in him and wouldn’t have thought it was fair anyway. He was a damaged alpha, incapable of being a halfway decent mate, and not the person who had proposed to Matt three years ago. 

Matt deserved better than Shiro, weak and jumpy and never really ‘there’ anymore, could give him. So he’d just sat on the couch and watched as his would-be-mate left. A few days later most of Matt’s stuff, the things too big to take out when everything had finally snapped, were gone too and that was that. 

Shiro had managed to push away someone who’d wanted to stay by him. It was almost an accomplishment considering how stubborn a person Matt was. Stubborn enough to stick through deployments, adopt Shiro’s...lifestyle choices as his own, sat besides his hospital bed, put up with flares of temper and depression for over a year. 

Shiro shook his head, trying to banish the thoughts, as he pushed open the door to the small public men’s room. The door shut behind him with a dull thud as his eyes adjusted to the bright yellow tinted lighting. It was heated, at least, and not nearly as dingy and disgusting as he’d expected. White walls, concrete floor that was devoid of any suspicious stains or puddles, three more or less clean sinks, and three side-by-side stalls.

It smelled like omega, a familiar touch of sweetness that registered to Shiro’s brain as fertile and unmated, but in a strange way. Overlapping on itself and oddly chemical, maybe a faint wisp of heat, either recently passed or oncoming. His nose twitched; most people covered their scents with dampening soaps and products, it was considered impolite to go around reeking like heat and fertile omega (or rut and alpha), so it wasn’t a smell he encountered much. 

He breathed it in, swallowed as saliva pulled in his mouth and his gums started to tingle, a sign that his eyeteeth were about to drop. It was also impolite to go around sniffing people or letting one's alpha teeth show, more or less on par with catcalling, and Shiro had better control than that as a general rule. 

But these were not the nicest of circumstances. 

A shuffling sound made him look down, tilting his head to peer under the bottom of the stall doors. In the middle stall he could see shoes, beat up dirty blue low-tops with red laces, scuffing at the floor. 

“Blue?” He asked, tentative. 

There was a moment of silence then: “Left stall.” 

He hesitated for a second then, silently reminding himself that even going inside wasn’t yet going so far he couldn't back out, walked over to the left stall and walked inside, flipping the lock into place behind him. 

The thing was that one the idea was in his head, of sex after all that time, it had been hard to shake. He couldn’t put a real finger on to why, he’d gone months without thinking about sex and was fine handling his needs himself. Maybe it was because he was long overdo for a rut. Maybe he missed having someone touch him. Maybe he was just lonely. 

Or horny. 

Shiro supposed it didn’t matter much beyond that he’d found himself online, trying to find out if anonymous, blind sex was a thing that existed. He’d found his answer on a not exactly reputable website where lots of people were offering lots of things in the form of a simple ad buried back on the third page of the  _ Omega Escort  _ section. 

_ Omega twink masseur with a big mouth (for stimulating conversation). No face-to-face, secrets kept, discreet. I host. _

There were no pictures on the ad, one of the few without, and no physical description beyond ‘twink’, which wasn’t exactly a lot to go on. But that was the point, he supposed. Shiro didn’t do anything with the ad right away. He thought about it a little, didn’t mention it to Allura when she forced him out for lunch and into work the next day, insisting his clients needed to see his face occasionally or to Doctor Haggar at his next 2 sessions. Not even when she asked about his sex life in general and tried to engage him in a conversation about how mental well being often has effects on one sex drive and functionality. 

Which seemed like a long winded way to say he was broken because his head was fucked up. Which he already knew. 

He’d answered the ad after three weeks of revisiting and watching it be reposted a few times. He was curious, to a degree, and maybe sort of wanted to see how it would go. When he’d gotten a response telling him to show up at a public bathroom he’d almost backed out then and there but, instead, he’d shown up. 

But he could back out. What was the guy in the middle stall going to do, chase him? Shiro was willing to guess he didn’t want to be seen anymore than he did and would just write him off as a little bit of wasted time. 

“You’re an alpha.” The voice on the other side of the stall wall said, something like curiosity in his voice. 

“I am. That a problem?” 

He hummed thoughtfully then something tapped against the stall. Shiro glanced down, eyebrow arching at the sight of a hole in the wall. Fingers, three of them, poked through the hole then crooked in a ‘come here’ sort of motion. 

“If your dick fits then there’s no problem.” 

Shiro breathed in and held the air, sweet and warm, in his lungs for a moment as he considered how he’d gotten to a point in his life where sticking his dick into a hole in a stall wall in a bathroom next to a train station was a viable option in his life. Then breathed out and let it go. 

“No problem then.” 

The omega laughed, a soft huff of amusement then wiggled his fingers again. They were long and thin, skin a light brown, nails painted a bright neon purple. “20 for the hand. 30 for mouth. 50 for more.” 

Handing money over didn’t mean he couldn’t back out. He had it to spare, rarely spent it, and he was willing to assume that anyone giving handjobs for 20 bucks needed it more than he did. So he pressed two 20’s onto the omega’s fingers, watched them curl around the money then withdraw. 

“I don’t carry change.” There was laughter in their voice. “But I’ll put it towards your next visit.” 

Shiro didn’t bother asking what made the other so certain there would be a next visit (maybe he had a lot of repeat customers). Instead he focused on the voice, tried to get a feel for it. Younger than him maybe, no accent he could detect, smooth and clear and playful. 

“How old are you?” 

Blue made a questioning noise then laughed again. “How old do you want me to be? Mid-twenties, so you don’t feel so weird? Barely legal?” Here his voice went just a touch higher and more youthful. “Maybe younger? Maybe I’ll call you daddy too. You kind of look like a daddy.”

Shiro grimaced, stomach twisting uncomfortably. “That’s disgusting.” 

“Hey. You’re about to stick your cock in a wall so don’t you kink shame me.” Something smacked against the stall divider, the omega’s hand probably. “It’s rude.” 

Shiro wasn’t sure if that was a joke or not and could only stare at the wall blankly. He really should leave. This was wrong on about a dozen level he could think of off the top of his head, not the least of which was that he had no idea who was the other side (yes, that was the point but) how old they were. If they were...some kidnapped exploited teen forced to do something they didn’t want. 

The news was always thick with stories about omegas snatched up right after they presented and forced into prostitution and he had no idea why that thought hadn’t occurred to him until now. 

He needed to leave. And maybe call the cops. And then go to church and think very seriously about his life because he wasn’t...he was not this sort of person. Maybe he would call Matt. Maybe this was-

“...23.” Blue said quietly. “And you don’t get your money back if you get cold feet.” 

Shiro shook his head even though he knew it couldn’t be seen. “That’s fine. Keep it.” 

Another moment of silence. Shiro reached for the lock on the door, flipped it, was ready to walk away and pretend he hadn’t been about to do anything this messed up. Then the sound of a zipper being undone filled the small, quiet space. He stopped, blinking rapidly. 

“Can I see your dick at least?” Blue asked, sighing. “You smell good and now I’m horny so. Spank bank material if you don’t mind.”

What the hell? He couldn’t be serious and yet, as Shiro stood there with his hand on the door he heard the rustle of clothing, a breathy sigh, and then the smell of slick, heady and cloying, filled the air. He blinked again, listened as Blue’s breathy sounds became deeper and mingled with a telltale wet squishing sound; it was faint, barely there at all but in the silence of the bathroom it was impossible to ignore. 

The image that came to mind, those long fingers pushing into a small pucker or wrapping around a cock, went straight to his dick and the smell of Blue went to his head, pushed and pulled and pleaded and insisted that there was a willing omega waiting for him and that he needed to take advantage. 

This was what he needed. 

He stepped pushed the lock back into place just as Blue let out a quiet moan, edged with more laughter. 

“You’re staying?” He sounded delighted, triumphant. Shiro felt terrible. Fingers poked through the hole, wet and shiny, and beckoned to him. “Let’s see it then Daddy.” 

“Don’t call me that.” Shiro muttered even as he stepped closer to the divider and those slick covered fingers. He’d been called a lot of things, Matt had been fond of Sir and Master when they played, but never Daddy. It made him...not nearly as uncomfortable as it should have. “Condom?”

“Hmm? Oh. Sure.” He could almost hear the shrug in Blue’s voice. His fingers vanished then came back with a foil packet between two of them. Shiro didn’t think about how many people probably didn’t ask for one or how uncaring Blue sounded about it. 

Not his concern. 

He rolled it over his mostly hard erection, wondered when he’d started getting this hard just at the smell of omega (it was like being in high school all over again) then took another moment to gather himself. 

This was fucked up. 

“Hey, Daddy,” Blue murmured, words drawn out and practically dripping with some emotion that made Shiro flush. No one had any right to sound so wanting and filthy with just two words. “The faster I get you in my mouth the faster I stop talking.” 

Shiro listened it was at least partially to stop Blue from talking. Not so much because of the words as how he was saying them. He pressed into the hole, once again thinking about the state of his life, then jumped when fingers wrapped around him. Blue whistled, low and seemingly impressed. 

“I think I’d sit on this for free.” Blue said, hand stroking up. “I also think your knot is going to get stuck.” 

“Uh-” Was all the response he managed before heat wrapped around his cock and his words smashed together into a strangled moan. 

It was very apparent that Blue had experience, mouth opening up wide as he went straight to work bobbing up and down over Shiro’s cock, sucking and slurping loudly as his tongue curled and flicked up. Blue sighed, vibrations making Shiro gasp then groan; Blue’s mouth was blazing hot even through the condom, tight and perfect and “Fuck!”

The tip of his cock pushed against something soft and spongy and then was being taken deeper, sliding into Blue’s throat. He reached for something, anything, to anchor him as Blue swallowed and hummed and let his forehead thud against the wall when he came up empty. His hand, his actual hand, scrambled over the smooth surface of the divider, nails scratching it, before laying flat against it. 

He wanted to do something with his hand, grip hair or skin, but there was nothing at all. 

Blue’s mouth, lips forming a tight O as they worked up and down his shaft, tongue working over the head when he pulled back to breathe, suckeling the tip with exaggerated needy sounds distracted him from that feeling. Even better when he was being taken back in, sliding in until there was nothing left for Blue to take, tongue tight against the underside to stroke at the vein there, and the omega let out a filthy moan around him. It was muffled and wet, rumbling low in his throat, and Shiro bit his lip to keep from returning it. 

Maybe it was that it had been awhile since anyone else had touched him. Maybe it was the scenario, the wrongness and the shame mixing up with a pulse of excitement he didn’t want to be there at all. Maybe it was just that Blue was fantastic with his mouth or the sound of something wet pattering against the floor as the omega moaned again, the sudden taste and smell of bitter salt in the air mixing with omega sweetness. 

Either way he was coming, biting the back of his hand to keep quiet as he filled the condom in strong pulses, faster than he’d expected to. He slumped against the divider, knees shaking, as Blue let his cock free with a slurp and a wet pop. 

It took him a minute to pull himself together and a few more to discard the condom and wipe himself off before flushing everything. He was buttoning his pants when Blue spoke, voice hoarse and deeper than it had been before. 

“You didn’t knot.” 

Shiro stopped, lips quirking upwards involuntarily. “No.”

A soft huff. “I think I’m offended.” 

“Don’t be.” Shiro’s eyes drifted over to the whole in the divider and then down to the shadow he could see creeping over from the other stall. If he turned his head just right he could see a bit of skin and blue jeans still pushed down. He was tempted to peek through the hole, see more of what was on the other side, but he pushed it down. 

Not his business. Contrary to the point. Blue didn’t want to be seen and he understood that.

Blue tapped the divider, soft rapid touches. “Come back. Next time I’ll get you to pop your knot.” 

Shiro left without a word, thinking it better to not tell Blue he wouldn’t be back and that, even if he were to, there was nothing he’d be able to do in that regard. It was something that Shiro had lost along with a kidney and an arm and Matt and most of his friends and...other things

In the grand scheme of things not being able to form a knot wasn’t one of the things that kept him up at night.

...not often. 

\---

Keith was curled up on the couch when he pushed into the motel room they'd been staying in. The lights were low, the TV was off, and he had a blanket pulled over his head. Lance had been able to smell his heat, not quite there but on the edge of being a problem for them, from outside the room and, judging by the curious looks he'd gotten from a small group of betas hanging out in the parking lot, he wasn't the only one. 

He dropped down in front of the couch and started to reach out to push the blanket back but stopped when Keith drew back, growling at him for a moment then flopping around, back to Lance.

"You smell like alpha." 

Lance wrinkled his nose; he's cleaned up as best he could but alpha scent tended to linger. Especially alpha sex smell. "I'll shower but then we have to get you out of here." A purple eye peeked out from beneath the blankets and an eyebrow arched. 

"Thought we were short by two-fifty." 

Lance fished the money out of his pocket and pushed it into Keith's hand. "Now we aren't. Told you I'd make sure you got a heat room, didn't I? And I haven't let you down yet, have I?" 

Keith eyed him, seemingly oblivious to how his silence clawed Lance up inside, made him want to die because the idea of letting Keith down _hurt_ , then nodded slowly before turning his head to face the back of the couch again. "Shower first." 

Things were tight lately. They'd had an apartment, small and rundown and not worth what they were paying (but less than this place they were paying for nightly), but Lance's last heat had lead to some dickhead alpha busting their door in (and then getting his teeth knocked down his throat by a furious Keith) because apparently this was the Dark Ages and some people still hadn't learned basic decency. They'd gotten tossed after paying for the door, the dangers of not having an actual lease or...ID. Or recordable income. A few nights in an omega shelter had followed, then this place, and they were basically out of money but damn if Lance was going to skip out on a proper heat room this time around. Stupidly expensive but secure and protected, made for omegas without their own heat rooms or mates to look after them to be safe during their heats, and sometimes you just had to take a hit for the team. 

Or the boyfriend. 

Or whatever Keith was. 

He pressed a kiss to the top of the other's forehead then stood up. First a shower. He, they, didn't do alphas as a general rule (too risky. Alphas got possessive and violent and shitty and that was something Lance understood entirely too well) but desperate times. And this one had...smelled really nice. And, from what he'd seen while peeking through the crack in the door when the guy had walked in, was not hard on the eyes. 

A flush warmed Lance's skin at the memory of that and how he'd touched himself while blowing the guy. He hadn't done something like that in...

A while. 

It was a stupid thing to do, he'd basically been teasing the alpha, but stupid things were sort of Lance's area of expertise. Playing with fire even more so; after all, wasn't that why he'd attached himself to Keith like he had? How he'd ended up where he was? Why he was hoping that alpha came back for another go?


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for anxiety, depression, some self harm imagery/thoughts, non-consensual touching, sex as a coping method, dissociation, and violence/blood.

“You have to come to the party. I need you there.” Allura said as she not so subtly pushed what was left of her chips and half of her sandwich closer to him. He eyed the bag then looked up at her, eyebrow arching. “Eat them, if you want.”

Shiro stared at her flatly, not bothering to keep the skepticism off of his face. He'd known Allura since they were children and he'd never known her to ‘need’ anyone for anything. She liked people around, liked having him around for reasons he couldn't grasp anymore (he wasn't the best company these days, often leaving her to carry the conversation by herself on the occasion that he showed up for their lunch dates, and ditched her a good 40% of the time.) She was his best friend.

But ‘need’? Not her.

He nudged the plate back towards her, shaking his head. “I’m not really feeling up to a party. Next time.”

She'd been after him to come to some party at her place for the past month and he'd been doing a pretty good job of avoiding the conversation up this point. But she'd taken it upon herself to take him to lunch before his session with Dr. Haggar and he hadn't been on the mood to try and deny her when he’d found her waiting outside by his car. Allura was all alpha, in the most forceful and overwhelming sense of the word. It was something that could be seen in how she carried herself, in the way even the air seemed to bend to her will, in the way her teeth showed when she smiled and the almost feral light in her eyes.

He'd learned to pick his battles a long time ago.

But a party? Probably full of former friends who'd distanced themselves because they couldn't bare to look at him. Or maybe he'd distanced himself from them because he couldn't bare to be seen. The truth was probably somewhere in the middle; people had called and tried to coax him outside less and less, especially after Matt left, until they stopped all together and he'd been grateful for it.

All the careful conversations, unnerving eye contact as people resisted the urge to look elsewhere, the awkward silences and winces when someone felt like they'd misstepped. It had been getting to him because it was constant; everyone was obsessed with treating him the ‘same’ and yet no one even came close to doing it. Instead they were cautious, as if they expected one wrong word or some off hand comments about bombs or references to things he'd missed while deployed or in the hospital would break him.

He'd gone and gotten himself blown up rather spectacularly, survived it, and come yet. Yet people who had known him since he was 10 were suddenly walking around on eggshells. Except Allura, of course. Allura didn't understand the concept of eggshells.

“I asked Shay to marry me.” Allura said, lips pursed. Shiro coughed, soda doing a fantastic job of trying to choke him. “She said yes and this is the ‘surprise’ engagement party. I've been planning this for a month and you’re going to be my best man. Man of honor? The point is you. Are. Coming.”

She emphasized each word with a poke to his arm. He didn’t bother trying to wave her off or doing anything except staring at her. He was...he actually wasn’t surprised at all. Allura and Shay had been dating and living together for a while and it was obvious to anyone who spent more than five minutes with them that Allura worshipped the ground the other woman walked on. It was inevitable.

He knew he should have been happy for her but he felt...not. Numb.

Not angry or sad or jealous, all of which may have been warranted. It probably wasn’t everyday ones ex-girlfriend turned best friend asked a person to be their Best Man less than a year after their own engagement had fallen apart. But he couldn’t even dredge up something like that, or a flicker of regret for how things were turning out, or even the happiness he knew should be there because this was Allura and there were few things as important to him as her being happy.

He was very tired all of a sudden.

“Shiro?” Her poking turned to a hand on his arm, grasping his lightly. “Are you-”

“I’ll come.” He said; he didn’t want to be asked if he was okay. He was so tired of that. Tired in general but especially of that question that there was no acceptable answer to. “Of course I’ll come. You’ll probably spank me if I don’t.”

She quirked an eyebrow, blue eyes sparkling with humor. “I seem to recall you were more of a boot licker than into spankings.”

Shiro offered up a smile he didn’t feel. “Did you want a new whip for an engagement gift?”

“Nope. Your presence is enough. And Shay doesn’t like whips.” She said it loftily and without missing a beat, as if the mere suggestion was beneath her. Then, showing entirely too much teeth in a wicked grin: “...I have been looking up some very nice silken ropes though.”

He snorted. “So my presence isn’t enough.”

“Of course is it, but a gift is a gift.”

\----

“An engagement?” Dr. Haggar asked, eyeing him with cool amber eyes. “How do you feel about that Shiro?”

He looked past her at the clock on the wall. “It’s nice.”

“Nice? Your ex girlfriend, who introduced you to the man you nearly married, is now engaged herself and your only opinion is that it’s ‘nice’?”

“Yeah.”

“I see.” The sound of her pen scratching over paper almost made him look at her, curious about what she might have been writing. “Did you run the experiment I asked you to do?” He hummed a yes but said nothing more. She was silent, waiting to see if he’d volunteer any information on his own. When he didn’t she wrote something else down. “How did it go?”

“No knot.”

“You had intercourse with an omega,” _Scritch scritch_ floated between them. “And were unable to form a knot with them? Why do you think that is?”

Shiro sighed; how had it only been ten minutes? Why were these sessions so long? “Some sort of mental deflection or projection, where I’m forcing the loss of my arm and general failure as an alpha to manifest physically as a broken dick.”

Haggar didn’t sigh at him or give any outwards sign that she found him frustrating beyond a quirked eyebrow and a mild “You’ve been self-diagnosing on the internet again.”

\----

It was a nice enough party. Lots of people, friends from high school, college, their military unit, and work all assembled for what they thought was a promotion party for Allura only to be surprised with the engagement announcement. Shiro stood to the side and watched as Coran burst into messy tears on Allura’s shoulder and Alfor hugged Shay hard enough to take her off of her feet. There was a lot of laughter and well wishes.

He trailed the happy couple as they made the rounds, shaking hands and accepting more hugs. He smiled politely and made small talk when it was needed; he would have slunk off into a corner if he could but Allura had one hand on the small of Shay’s back and the other around his wrist, keeping him close.

He was itchy under his skin, feeling more than a little uncomfortable. The focus was on Allura and Shay, as it should have been, but it was also on him. He didn't make public appearances often, had fallen out of contact with most of these people in the past year, had no idea what they were up to or how to respond to their well meaning questions. He was barely listening, honestly, more focused on breathing and not letting all the noise, the scents, the closeness of others crush him.

How was he doing? The same as always. How was work? It was work. Was he seeing anyone? Well, he'd gotta a blow job from a hooker but that was mostly to satisfy his therapist's curiosity and probably didn't count anyway.

Not that he said that. Instead he smiled politely, explained that work kept him too busy or dating, and tried to resist the urge to scratch at the itch under his skin, to peel the ill-fitting form right from his bones in a desperate attempt to feel comfortable for just a few moments. Breathe and don't run off as people talk about children. Smile and don't fall apart under the crushing oppressive feeling. Nod and don't choke on the anxiety trying to claw up his throat and burst out of him.

He could do this. He could-

“Shiro?”

He realized, entirely too late, that he must have been more out of it than he thought. He turned around, forgetting all about the conversation he was sleepwalking through, to stare down at Matt. A year ago he would have known his scent anywhere, vanilla and ink and old books, would have smelled *his* omega coming the moment he entered the same apartment with him. But now even standing in front of him that scent was muffled, different, failed to invoke that rush of emotion and warmth in him that it once had.

But that was to be expected because that was how it had been when Matt left. Maybe he'd always sort of hoped that the next time they saw each other things would be different somehow, that all the things he'd been lacking or lost would have corrected themselves but at the same time he'd known that wasn't going to be the case.

Matt’s face did something complicated and then he turned to the side. “I didn't know you were going to be here. ...it's nice to see you. You look better...good. You look good.”

Shiro shrugged. It was Allura’s party so of course he was here...except how many other occasions had he missed? How many times had Matt tried to coax him out of bed for something as simple as a shower or food only for Shiro to refuse him. It wasn't that off the wall, really, for Matt to assume he wouldn't show up. Again.

Shiro had gotten good at not showing up.

They didn't say anything else and Shiro was acutely aware of how awkward this must have looked on the outside. How awkward it was in the inside, confront with someone who'd spent years at his side and having absolutely nothing to say to him. His nails pressed into the soft flesh of his palm, scratched along. He should have see this coming. Matt and Allura were friends, had remained that way after the breakup. Of course he'd be here too. 

Of course Allura, who still openly held out hope that they'd repair their relationship, wouldn't have told him Matt was coming. 

Shiro probably wouldn't have shown up if he'd known. 

He probably would have locked himself in his bedroom with a bottle of rum if he'd known. 

The itch got stronger.

“Matt,” A voice called. Matt turned away, a bright smile appearing on his face so fast it seemed almost reflexive. A moment later a man was at Matt's side, touching his arm and beaming down at him. “Your sister is looking for you.”

“Oh.” Matt nodded then looked back at Shiro, smile dimming. “You should come say hello. Katie misses you. My parents too.”

“I’ll be over in a second.” Shiro’s smile was in place and he couldn't help but wonder if it should have been harder. If he should be upset or feel anything aside from that itch.

Matt nodded again then melted into the crowd, laughing at something the man he was with was saying to him. Shiro watched him go then, avoiding the sympathize gaze of people he'd once considered friends, headed for the door, phone in hand.

\----

Lance hit the wall with a grunt, pain crawling up his hands and chest like insects creeping over his skin. The man, a beta who worked at the omega shelter Lance stayed at sometimes, crowded closer, sour breath wafting over the side of his face. Lance grunted and tried to push away from the wall but the man's superior weight kept him crushed against the cool stone wall.

He squirmed, stomach sinking at the feeling of the man's erection digging into his ass and a clammy hand pushing under the hem of his t-shirt. Fingers skimmed his skin then drifted down to yank at his pants. He moved his head to the side, trying to avoid the hot reeking breath and plastered himself closer the wall, attempting to crush the man's hand.

“Don’t be like that Lance.” The man murmured, other hand wedging between them to palm his ass. “I’ve have my eye on you, you know. You’re nothing like all the other sad washed out omegas here and I was hoping we could...talk.”

“I’ll scream.” He fought to keep his voice steady and not let the panic he could feel swimming in his gut show. They were in the pantry, he'd been poking around to see what  he could lift before venturing out for the night, and he knew for a fact it was almost impossible to hear anything from so far back. Especially with the shelter as full as it was at the moment; people were sleeping on the floor because there was no room and the front rooms were bustling with life, so loud Lance couldn't hear himself think.

That was why he was leaving.

One of the reasons anyway. The other reason was that in spite of this place only employing omegas and betas, for ‘safety’, he’d heard some things that gave him the impression this place wasn’t as safe as it was made out to be. But then they never were, were they? Omega shelters, all the ones he'd fallen into, were the same when you really got down to it: places for fucked up omegas with nowhere else to go and no one who cared about them, no one to go to when things did happen. 

Perfect victims all under one roof. 

He’d bounced around between a few as he made his way further and further from home and in a lot of them the situation was the same. Someone, usually a beta but sometimes he’d heard (or seen) an older omega with wandering eyes or hands, who was willing to dangle a place to sleep and food over another person’s head to get what they wanted.

Lance had quickly come to accept that people just worked that way and that the nice comfortable safe world his parents had raised him to believe in didn’t exist at all. Or maybe he’d just lost access when he’d run away from home or run away from his boyfriend or- It didn’t really matter anymore. What he knew for sure was that at some point something had gone wrong and it was his fault.

The man laughed, hand pushing deeper into Lance's pants and squeezing. Lance’s knees shook and his skin crawled in disgust. “What about if I pay? That’s all it takes to get you ass up isn't it? Everyone here knows all about you. ”

And, God help him, he blushed and closed his eyes, embarrassed in spite of himself. It was stupid, so fucking stupid, to let something like that get under his skin like that. So what if people knew? He was just doing what he had to do, what he was good at. Better than sitting in some shelter hoping some jackass in need of a wife decided to rescue him some day like half of the other omegas were hoping for. Or whoring himself out to the staff, like that was some hugely different situation, in exchange for a nicer cot or whatever else people exchanged stuff for.

Not that Lance was judging, not really.

He just didn’t see the difference.

“Maybe I’ll just call the cops. Tell them I caught you stealing and all about what the other knot sluts here say about you.”

Lance eyed his bag, full of food he’d taken and money he doubted anyone would believe was his if it came down to it. He thought about the cops and how, inevitably, he’d be taken back to his parents. He thought about having to look them in the eye and explain where he’d been, what he’d done, for the past three years.

In another lifetime he would have fought, gone down swinging and accepted whatever came next because that was just what he did. In this lifetime he squeezed his hands into fists at his side, made himself go limp, and willed himself be somewhere else.

_When he was 14 he’d gone to the beach with his family and the girl he’d been ‘dating’ in that they went to the movies together, held hands, and were waiting for his braces to come off so they could really kiss at some point. Not that they’d never kissed but...braces. They were, at the time, the worst thing he could imagine in life._

“I can make it worth your while.” Another squeeze and a lick at the shell of his ear. Lance breathed out slowly; _his girlfriend had worn a two-piece, pink with white flowers all over it. She’d gotten it just for that beach trip, more to impress his sisters than to impress him but he’d been a big fan of it as well._ “I’ve got a friend. Got a girl knocked up, pulled some strings, got her and her pup sent to a nice home down by Atlanta. Got a job, going to school. Better than how you’re living here, isn’t it?”

_The water was warm that day, the sand hot, and. And. Perfect. He remembered thinking it was perfect. Splashing around with his siblings and girlfriend, walking up to eat corndogs and fries on the boardwalk, salt coating his mouth and chased away with icy fruit drinks. Holding her hand and feeling warm when she smiled up at him, eyes bright through her bangs._

His pants were pulled at, dragged down, and a thick fingers poked at him, into him. “Fuck, you're completely dry. What kind of frigid slut-" 

There was a cracking noise, or maybe it was a crunch, a thud, and the man’s words dropped into a strange surprised noise and then his weight was all on Lance and sliding down, nearly dragging him to the ground as well. He stayed up and scurried along the wall, hands gripping his pants to keep from completely losing them, eyes widening as he twisted around to see what had happened. The man was on the floor, hands up to cover his face, and someone was straddling him, fists flying.

There was a brick, completely out of place and smudged with blood, sitting nearby. It was, Lance thought dully, the brick they used to prop open the kitchen door that lead to the back alley, to make taking out the trash easier.

And the person beating the holy hell out of the man was another one of the omegas who stayed here. Lance didn’t know him, but he knew of him because he’d been told to stay away. Supposedly another omega had been running from their boyfriend and hiding out and when said boyfriend had shown up he’d gotten his ass kicked. An alpha, beaten within an inch of his life by a furious omega.

It wasn’t something that happened. Ever.

The man was bleeding. Not just bleeding, really, but his whole face was a curtain of blood and he’d stopped trying to defend himself because his arms were limp at his side. Lance couldn’t tell if he was awake or alive and the other omega just kept hitting him, even though his fists were bloody and his face was flecked with the stuff and he looked absolutely fucking crazy, violet eyes flat and unfocused, mouth twisted into a snarl.

There was a lot of blood.

Lance turned and, in spite of his best efforts to not do it, emptied the contents of his stomach onto the cold pantry floor. He leaned against the wall for a moment, staring at nothing and trying not to hear the sounds of flesh meeting flesh behind him.

This was. He needed to.

Not be here.

Run.

He had to run.

Again.

Now.

He would never be able to say what made him wobble over and grab the other omega or how he managed to drag him away from the beta without getting punched himself. He didn’t know why he took the other man’s hand and, after scooping up his bag, ran out of the pantry and for the kitchen door, ignoring the alarmed shouts of people on their way out.

He didn’t know where they were running to or why he kept the other’s hand in a death grip the entire time.

They ended up at the beach, under one of the piers. The other omega wandered off to clean his hands and face and jacket in the ocean. He sat under the pier, unbothered by the damp ocean clinging to his skin or the burn of salt in his nose. When the part of his brain screaming for him to run finally faded it left fear and shock on its wake. Had that ..had that really happened? It must have, had to, because he could smell that betas sour breath and feel his hands on him, the feeling clinging like oil to his skin. It was the same, it was always the same, no matter where he went he couldn't escape, not really, he wasn't sure why he kept trying, why he bothered running, why he couldn't just...Stop. And not be. There. With.

Fuck.

He dug his fingers into the sand and tried to grasp onto the feelings, to stop the familiar emotions, urges, but it was hopeless. It always was. He wasn't strong enough to control himself, never had been, and that was why he was here to begin with.

He hated that he couldn't not be like this.

When the other man came back he sat next to him, skin pale and eyes dark, bruise-like smudges under them. Lance moved to straddle his lap without really thinking about it, met surprised eyes with his own, and leaned in to bring their mouths together.

There was a tense moment but then hands touched his hips and lips parted under his own. Lance sighed, eyes sliding shut.

This would help. It always helped. He only knew one way to deal with things, how to disappear into his own head and stop being a person for a while.

It was the only thing he was any good at. 

\---

It was the buzzing of his phone, announcing a message of some sort, that woke Lance up from his dream. He stared at the ceiling,  confused and sluggish as he tried to piece together where he was and shake off the memory of running down a street with blood squishing against his skin because Keith’s hands were covered in it and the rough feel of sand over bare skin as he rode Keith's dick under that pier. He was hot, burning up under his skin, and his head was swimming. Things were jumbled up in his head, like they always were when he dreamed.

They’d slept under the pier then used Lance’s money to leave the city by bus. The news was on in the bus terminal, all about a vicious attack on some innocent omega shelter volunteer. There were grainy pictures of himself and Keith, with the fake names they’d been using, some pretty decent descriptions, but no one looked their way.

And that was it. They’d been together ever since, more or less.

Lance had gone back to his ex once, but he always went back and a month later he’d found Keith in the same place he’d left him so they’d just pretended it didn’t happen. Keith had upped and vanished once. Lance still didn’t know where he’d gone and he didn’t ask. He didn't care so long as Keith always came back.

His phone was blinking at him, blue light on and off and on again. He untangled himself from Keith, still flushed and sweating from his heat but down for the count for the moment, and swiped it open. It was a Walmart phone, no contract, cheapest model they had. It served their purposes well enough and could be ditched with no real regret if they ever needed to.

He hummed when he saw it was an email to his ‘work’ account. From...that alpha from a few days ago.

‘If you can make it tonight I'll pay triple.’

  



End file.
